This invention relates to the handling of biscuits or like laminar articles (hereinafter "articles") and more particularly relates to apparatus enabling a plurality of streams of articles to be reduced to a lesser number of streams.
The invention is particularly suitable to the well-known type of biscuit manufacturing plant wherein, after being baked in an oven, the biscuits emerge from the oven lying flat on a band conveyor, in rows or lanes disposed side by side across the width of the conveyor, as well as spaced apart from each other in a direction lengthwise thereof. The biscuits, prior to being fed to subsequent handling equipment such as creaming and/or wrapping machines, are converted from a position in which they are lying flat on the conveyor band, to a stacked position in which they rest on edge, in face to face contact, so as to form aligned columns or streams. In this position they are conveyed in rows within guide channels extending in the direction of conveyance.
Use of the full width of the oven band is necessary to achieve correct baking results. However, the number of rows of biscuits emerging from the oven is usually substantially greater than the number required to feed subsequent handling apparatus. Furthermore, the number of biscuits across the band is often unsuitable for subsequent handling. The number of rows, therefore, needs to be reduced to a number suitable for subsequent feeding to processing apparatus such as creaming and wrapping machines.
The object of the present invention is to provide apparatus which can handle a plurality of streams of laminar articles such as biscuits, so as to form a lesser number of streams.